Because even if you know intellectually that kids aren't necessarily going to be sucked into the maw of evil wrongthinking simply by reading a book, it's hard to let go of the desire to protect your spawn from even knowing about things you think are evil wrongthinking.
I can't fault crazy religious folks from wanting to protect their kids from liberal secularism, except insofar as I am a liberal secularist and think they are crazy religious folks. On this point I feel fine calling it a "culture war" and insisting that I want my culture to win.
In its ideal form, liberal secularism believes that merely being exposed to ideas won't corrupt someone, that tolerance for all ideas will allow the better, more useful ones to thrive, and all sensible people will see that Intolerance, Bias, and Selfish Materialism will be revealed as the worst destructive forces and ought to be avoided.
Unfortunately, the larger world I live in is one where 50% of all people are below average intelligence. This is not a bad thing, but it does make tolerance for everything a dangerous proposition.
Not all kids will be seduced to the dark side of the force by merely reading about it, but enough children are influenced by what they read, both for good and for bad, that it's not an unreasonable fear.
Idealistic secular liberals may permit their kids to read Twilight, but they at least want to make sure their daughters understand that there's more to life than being an uneducated, teenage mother with an abusive, stalker husband. There are quite a many young women these days who are from mainstream (read: not crazy religious kooks) households who obsess about getting married and having babies, to the point where they don't think critically about the traits of a suitable male partner. So disliking anything that seems to reinforce that attitude is highly understandable.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 08:52 pm (UTC)I can't fault crazy religious folks from wanting to protect their kids from liberal secularism, except insofar as I am a liberal secularist and think they are crazy religious folks. On this point I feel fine calling it a "culture war" and insisting that I want my culture to win.
In its ideal form, liberal secularism believes that merely being exposed to ideas won't corrupt someone, that tolerance for all ideas will allow the better, more useful ones to thrive, and all sensible people will see that Intolerance, Bias, and Selfish Materialism will be revealed as the worst destructive forces and ought to be avoided.
Unfortunately, the larger world I live in is one where 50% of all people are below average intelligence. This is not a bad thing, but it does make tolerance for everything a dangerous proposition.
Not all kids will be seduced to the dark side of the force by merely reading about it, but enough children are influenced by what they read, both for good and for bad, that it's not an unreasonable fear.
Idealistic secular liberals may permit their kids to read Twilight, but they at least want to make sure their daughters understand that there's more to life than being an uneducated, teenage mother with an abusive, stalker husband. There are quite a many young women these days who are from mainstream (read: not crazy religious kooks) households who obsess about getting married and having babies, to the point where they don't think critically about the traits of a suitable male partner. So disliking anything that seems to reinforce that attitude is highly understandable.